Alice has returned from London, where she’s lived for five years, to her village in eastern England after the death of her husband. Her mother died recently as well, so she has come home to live with the youngest of her brothers, Matthew. It’s hard enough facing life without her husband, without her mother, and without money or possessions of her own, but when she learns her brother is compiling a list of women who are suspected of being witches, she is wary, unnerved and afraid.

The mood in 1645 is one of unrest overall because of a civil war going on in the country, and the setting is just right as Matthew Hopkins (this book is based on a real historical figure who hunted down supposed witches) goes about his plans. Here in this novel, the author creates a fictional sister for him and a background that could explain some of his actions and motivations. Matthew is scarred on parts of his face and arms from an accident in a fire when he was a baby, and he has long been on the outside of things, keeping to himself. But as he compiles his list of witches, he finds “friends” in the powerful men of the area. He also is empowered to go further and further afield to make the list ever larger.

Alice is mourning the loss of her husband and is hoping she will not lose her unborn baby, as she has so many before. She is afraid to reveal her pregnancy because she is already so dependent on her brother. But she feels compelled to try to say something to him to get him to see reason, to stop this horrific business he is bent on continuing. She is sure there’s something in his past, inside of him, that is the reason he is determined to accuse perfectly innocent women and sentence them to death by hanging. As she furtively tries to gather information from her mother-in-law, who was their family’s servant when Matthew was a baby, and try to find out clues from her late father’s journal (kept in her brother’s locked room), she feels she is getting closer to a motive, even as the danger to more women — and herself — ramps up.

The Witchfinder’s Sister creates a portrait of a tortured man through the eyes of his sister. The tension builds slowly until the very end, as secrets are slowly revealed and Alice herself faces retribution for not falling in line with her brother’s orders. While I wasn’t engrossed in the story for much of the book, I did find myself not being able to put it down as I got close to the end.

What an amazing, disturbing, twisted bit of historical fiction. The best kind of historical fiction. A look at a serious event in history, based around a bit player that we know so little about.

Matthew Hopkins was a real person in history. A self-appointed "Witchfinder General", who sought to rid the world of witches and witchcraft. Operating in Britain, as opposed to the US, which is where every piece of witchcraft history I've ever read has been. There's not much difference, but it's still amazing to think this was happening elsewhere in the world.

The story is told through the eyes of his sister, Alice. A woman who used what limited power she had in these dreadful days to try to stop her brother, and assist the townfolk caught up in Matthew's madness.

When history looks back at the men who hunted witches, at the people who accused their neighbors of sorcery, how do they see them? Religious zealots? Greedy opportunists? Scared innocents?

What if it were simple mental imbalance? Or, as referred to then, a weakness of the mind?

What if the witch hunters were sociopathic killers?

It is believed that serial killers operate regularly throughout the world, and are never discovered because they hunt prostitutes, women who matter so little that their deaths aren't viewed as anything more than a risk of the trade.

What if a serial killer used his belief that all women are wanton, lusty strumpets to spur an entire village to approve his murders?

This book doesn't spell out Matthew's reasoning. In fact, the answer we are (possibly) given as to his motives are the most disappointing part of the book, and why it only gets four stars. I found that part wasteful, and would've prefered that bit to be left to the reader to decide.

Other than that, I found this book immensely enjoyable. Or, as enjoyable as books about murdered women in Puritan times can be. Such a great read.

This is a fascinating story that is intriguing and suspenseful. Based on a real, horrifying time in history, it brings to life the feelings and consequences of the time and circumstances. It draws you into the history and mystery that is the witch trials. For those who are interested in witches, this is a great book to read.
I received a complimentary copy of this book from Netgalley. This is my voluntary and honest opinion of it.

This tale is a great big bundle of historical fiction, mystery, unresolved sibling rivalry, sexual tension in the mid-1600s, and some spooky stuff thrown in for good measure. The general misogyny that resulted in witch mayhem is well described in this book. The author does a tremendous job of describing the ways in which a woman might come under suspicion of being a witch. A woman might have too many children and not pay them enough attention. She might not have a child of her own and yearn too much for one, paying too much attention to the children of others through kindness. A woman might cry too much or not enough when becoming a widow or losing a child to death. In all cases the women finally accused had no one else to speak for them, their husbands dead or run away, same with any children. They were outside any social order, even the lowest, and thus available for shunning.

Enter our Witchfinder, the strangely disfigured brother, Matthew, of our heroine Alice. Once unbelievably close, they have been separated for five years and now rejoin upon the death of Alice's husband. She has nowhere else to go and is pregnant. In the interim, Matthew has become wealthier but distant and strangely odd. As our tale begins, Alice is locked in a room, without food for three days and begins to describe how her brother murdered 106 women.

There is a sense of foreboding and dread that seeps into this tale in ways that are scary and creepy. There are just the right amounts of historical information to whet your appetite for more details as the tale progresses and for google searches on your own. There are secrets within secrets that keep you reading much longer that you planned and possibly keep you up late at night. This is a big, juicy book that I loved.

I’m really on an Ancient Rome kick. After reading Confessions of Young Nero by Margaret George, I went looking for something juicy to follow up. I was not disappointed by Crystal King’s debut historical fiction.

The story follows the slave Thrasius, bought by the disgustingly rich Roman aristocrat Apicius to run his kitchen. Apicius is an already famous gourmand, and he wants to climb to the top of Roman culinary society by becoming an advisor to the Roman Emperor. Willing to go to any expense and any excess to achieve his goal, the book follows Thrasius and Apicius across a sweep of decades.

King has done a masterful job in her debut work. As with any book about Ancient Rome, the drama is high and the casual violence and cruelty is breathtaking. The world occupied by Thrasius and Apicus is vividly wrought, with a great deal of attention paid to historical accuracy. While Thrasius and his fellow slaves are fictional (identities of Roman slaves are understandably shrouded in the historical record), Apicius and his family (and other high-born Romans in this book) were all real people. Apicius himself is credited with the creation of a series of cookbooks, some of which still survive today.

King carefully crafts her major characters, giving them a multifaceted existence which lends complexity and humanity to the story. King also does a wonderful job weaving a number of disparate historical threads together into a coherent story. The span of decades allows the reader to watch as the characters grow and develop.

Any fan of historical fiction will enjoy this book. King has a wonderful (and rare) talent for blending the historical and fictional aspects of the book together, providing needed background without sacrificing pace. This is a fine drama, and should appeal to a wide variety of tastes.

An advance copy of this book was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

“The Witchfinder’s Sister” by Beth Underdown

Pub. Date: Feb. 27, 2017
Publisher: Penguin Books

In this historical fiction the character of the sister is fictional, but her brother, Matthew Hopkins, was a real person. And, he was a witchfinder. He even had the title of “Witchfinder General” during the English Civil war (1642-1646). (I googled that really was his title). I was hoping to read, learn a bit more about the war between the Royalists, supports of King Charles I and the Parliamentarians, supporters of the rights of Parliament, but the author decided to just educate the reader that fear of witches was pronounced by the general fear in England at this time.

The story is narrated by the sister who is widowed and forced to move back home with her brother. She quickly learns that home is no longer a safe place and her brother has grown into an evil man who longs for power. He insists that she be a part of his witch investigations. The tale reads like a psychological horror story, but is all the more terrifying knowing that such events in history did indeed happen. Hopkins was a frightening monster. “My brother, Matthew set himself to killing women…but without once breaking the law.”

The inhuman methods that Hopkins used in his investigations are difficult to read. Women were tied to a stool and not allowed to sleep for hours which often led to sleep deprived confessions. Females accused were pricked with special needles in their vaginas and if an animal licked the blood they were considered witches. Another example where death is the only outcome is when suspects were tied to a chair and thrown into water: all those who "swam" (floated) were considered to be witches and were then hung. Of course, when the innocent didn’t float they died a watery grave rather than by the gallows.

The author does an impressive job in taking the reader back into this ghastly time in history. I could feel the uncertainty and fear in the villages caused by a righteous lunatic. Who would be next? One daughter gave false evidence against a group of women who lived in her village with the promise that her mother might be spared. I will leave you to guess if mother and daughter lived. The author makes it easy to read between the lines, that the Hopkins’ witch trials had more to do with politics than potions, not to mention gender issues. Now here we are in the year of 2017 and despite all that we know, we still can breed the hysteria that can create a monster. I can’t help but wonder if humankind will ever learn.

A big thank you goes to Beth Underdown, Ballantine Books, and netgalley for this free copy in exchange for an unbiased review.

"Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live"
"Why hast thou forsaken me"

Really a 3.5 one of the better witch hunt novels I've read especially since it's based on different historical perspective

The Civil War of 1640s England is rolling on, and the hunt for witches is strong in the counties. Women are arrested and persecuted for the the most ludicrous reasons, no proof necessary. And the Roundheads believe that their way of worship and governing is the correct way.

Our fictional character, Alice, returns to town after suffering the loss of her fictional husband, Joseph. She moves in with her brother, the true to life witch hunter Matthew Hopkins. By the end of his life he was responsible for the death of over 100 women accused of witch craft or of consorting with the devil, many of whom admitted guilt. Not much is known about his life outside of his witch trials, so the author takes liberty in this story. But that in no way affects its quality.

The story is told from Alice's point of view. She investigates her brother's activity as well as the secrets kept in her family that went to the grave. Matthew has no respect for females. They are all worthless whores as far as he's concerned. This includes his own sister. He's also suffered from severe scarring from a fire since childhood, which I think has had an affect on his personality.

Whenever I read books like this I always ponder my possible past lives. Had I lived in the 1640s I'm certain I would have been scrutinized as a possible witch. I'm sure of it. I'm too independent, awkward, and isolated, not to mention wanton and opinionated. And I don't go to church. I always wonder if I could have held out through the tests. They sound terrible. No wonder so many pled guilty. They didn't want to suffer the torture any longer. Some went truly mad from the pain and lack of sleep.

Looking through history man seems to cyclically find a populous to intimidate and persecute. The mid 1600s were old or otherwise quirky women. Evidence of religion gone wrong. One reason why I don't trust organized religion.

Readers of historical fiction definitely give this book a look. Quick read with some interesting info

This book was one that I found interesting from the start. It was a pretty slow moving book but I felt that it told the story fairly well. I could sense the pain of Alice not only losing her husband but having multiple miscarriages. She knew the brother she loved and remembered from her childhood was still in Matthew but needed to get out of his shadow. I had a hard time keeping interested in this book because it moved so slow.

In 1645, Alice Hopkins’ husband died in a horrible accident leaving her to return to to the small Essex town of Manningtree where her brother lived to move in with him. Little did Alice know that her brother had changed though with rumors of him having a book of women’s names that accused them of witchcraft. With Alice hiding a pregnancy she slowing begins to uncover the darker side of her brother Matthew.

The Witchfinder’s Sister is a fictional tale based on the real person Matthew Hopkins. Matthew actually was known as a witch hunter in the time the book is based and was known for being responsible for the deaths of 300 women between the years 1644 and 1646. The author has loosely based this fictional tale upon his real life giving readers a look into that era.

I have to say this wasn’t particularly a bad book and I can see some people loving the story but for me I just couldn’t get into most of it due to the slow pacing. The beginning started off rather well and I thought I would also be one loving this read but it became a bit dry for my taste after a while and I just couldn’t get behind Alice or the story she was telling to keep my attention and interest for long.

After pushing through the slowness I didn’t mind the ending of the story too much either but in the end I decided to rate this one at 2.5 stars just for the slowness of the read to me. I liked what the author was trying to do but perhaps there was just too much focus on Alice and not even on Matthew who is the real star of the story to keep up my interest.

I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.

From 1644 to 1646, over 300 women (this is a conservative estimate) lost their lives in Essex, England and the surrounding area. Why? Because they were accused of being witches! Their accuser was Matthew Hopkins and this is his story told by his sister. Not a lot is known about Matthew or his family, making this is a historical fiction. This novel tries to explain why Matthew viciously accused these women, some mentally incapacitated and how he brought about their hangings. Up until this time few women lost their lives for this crime but he changed all this.

This story is told from the viewpoint of Matthew’s sister, Alice. It is told in her voice as she is documenting the horrifying details of the past two years and how she was forced to assist him. In this way, she is attempting to ensure that history would not repeat itself. This method of storytelling allows the author to present details of both their lives which makes the story interesting and page turning. It tells both characters’ past and present lives and the suspense slowly builds as you realize the details that have turned Matthew into the monster that he is. The story comes to a traumatic, shocking conclusion that can’t be foreseen and leaves you shaking your head.

I found this book to be very thought-provoking. Since little is actually known about the Hopkins family, fact and fiction are interspersed throughout. When I was done reading, I was compelled to look up the history of this man and also about the witch hunts that many women lost their lives to. I would recommend this book more for young adult to adult readers because some of the information contained may be disturbing to young readers.

Review from off-centerviews.blogspot.com

The Witchfinder’s Sister. By Beth Underdown. Ballantine Books, 2017, 336 pages.
★★★★

Americans reflexively think of Salem whenever witch trials are conjured. We forget that the Puritans that conducted Salem's horrors were Englishmen, just as we forget that (by some estimates) 50,000 Europeans were executed for witchcraft from 1500 to 1800, 80% of them women. A half century before Salem (1692), witchcraft hysteria swept East Anglia, particularly Essex, Wessex, and Suffolk.

The most notorious of England’s witchfinders were John Stearne and Matthew Hopkins, both of whom figure prominently in Beth Underdown’s gripping debut. Bear in mind that this is a historical novel. Very little is known of the historical Matthew Hopkins (?1620-47), other than the fact his father was a clergyman, and that Matthew moved to Manningtree, Essex sometime around 1640. From there he launched a two-year reign of terror in 1644-46 that saw more 300 individuals arrested, around a hundred of whom were executed. We don’t know if he had a sister, let alone one named Alice, Underdown’s protagonist and narrator. Moreover, Hopkins probably died of TB, not the more satisfying ending Underdown provides. So bear in mind as you read that the story is “true” in its essence, but not in its particulars.

They are mighty fine particulars, though. Underdown gives us a portrait of how hysteria begins small—whispers, gossip, grudges, innuendo¬—and gathers steam when embraced by bullies, demagogues, and fanatics. She imagines Hopkins as more complex than a monster, a true believer who justified doing unspeakable things as advancing God's work. Alice and her associates represent the voices of reason. And never shall the twain meet, especially in a climate rent asunder by the English Civil War. Alice also represents a protest against misogyny, but that too was a cry in the 17th century social wilderness. Thus the catastrophe that unfolded. Underdown uses her invented characters to personalize the tragedy and give us entrée into specifics. Her description of a "swimming," a watery test for malevolence, is particularly vivid and makes us shudder. Ditto her depictions of witch "detection" tactics such as sleep deprivation, walking, watching, and examining for imps.

Most of all, though, the clash between Matthew and Alice over the unfolding events gives us both a micro and macrocosm perspective on the witchcraft trials. It is easy to forget that both accusers and victims were also ordinary people who prepared meals, emptied chamber pots, tended their gardens, mourned lost loved ones, courted, and conducted business. Underdown does a nice job of capturing the rhythms of everyday life without getting bogged down in minutiae that would detract from the central plot. She's also good with suspense. We, the readers, can see Alice's options melt and the walls begin to close in around her. It is to Underwood's credit that we feel like screaming out for Alice to run and keep turning the pages to see if she does.

To be objective, this book also bears some of the weaknesses of a debut novel. Several of the characters are drawn a bit too broadly; others (too) conveniently appear and disappear. Stylistically, I wish Underwood and her editors would learn when to use "her" and when to use "she." You can decide for yourself if she went over the top with her ending. I understand the allure of delicious irony, but sometimes it's better to leave things understated. You will also have to decide whether our narrator, Alice, is credible for the time period, or if she is a 21st century feminist in 17th century drag. For the record, I think Underwood wanted to have her both ways, hence I was willing to suspend disbelief in passages I found ahistorical.

The Witchfinder's Sister is a chilling tale that most readers will rip through. We should remember, though, that Matthew Hopkins was a real person and that his The Discovery of Witches was widely consulted as a go-to guide for more than a century. Salem loomed in the future, but European witch trials continued into the 19th century. England had a case of witch swimming as late as 1863, even though it repealed its witchcraft laws 127 years earlier. Underwood's novel ultimately made me think upon how easily hysteria forms and how hard it is to vanquish. Maybe the 17th century lurks closer than we might imagine.

Rob Weir

Wow, what a read. I was engrossed from the start! If you like historical fiction, this is a great one.
Set during Europe's witch trails around 1645.. Who knew? Europe had witch trials too?! This story
follows Alice after her husband's death. She seeks refuge with her brother Matthew Hopkins in the
small town where they grew up. She discovers that Matthew is an investigator into possible witches..
Torn between her family and her disgust for his profession.. as well as the reliance women had on the
men in their lives.. Alice becomes an unwilling observer and participant.

This book covers an interesting historical event that most Americans are unfamiliar with. We always
think of the Salem witch trials.. hundreds of women were executed in Europe before Salem. Throughout
the book the reader really identifies with Alice. She's stuck in this situation that she abhors, but Matthew
has such control over her life, that there's nothing to be done.

Would recommend! 5 stars

We are England in 1645. The witchfinder is Matthew Hopkins, a man scarred and haunted by a painful accident at birth and who carries deeper scars within. The sister is Alice, childless and newly widowed, she must return to Manningtree, her family home, and seek refuge with her brother. Alice is disturbed by the difference in the town since she left just five years before. Now, there is distrust, suspicion and death.
Matthew is a hunter of witches, sanctioned by the laws and the men who look to scripture for validation. Now, no one is safe and Alice defies her brother and the whisperings of others to find the reason for his visciousness. But no one is safe from him, not even herself.
What makes this all the more soul wrenching is that Matthew Hopkins, witch finder, was a historical person and historically, these witch hunts were carried out before Salem. It’s our knowing the future that makes this richly historical story the scariest.

What a cool book! Anything involving witch hunts and witch trials is interesting to me, and this was well written and engaging.

This book was all right. The topic was interesting, but the story lagged in places. It's not a book I would read again.

This read very slow for me. There were times when I really wanted to put the book down. And I want to kick myself for feeling like that because this was a horrible event in history. I should feel bad for thinking this. However, this is how I felt.

The story did pick up some and while it was grueling to carry on, I was glad that I did. The finish was thoroughly an eye opening for me into that horrible event I referred to in the paragraph above. It was hideous what those people did. The tests and trials were enough that anyone would give up and say "yes, I'm a witch, kill me now".

Back to the book though, the first half is L-O-N-G and S-L-O-W. I think the ending was so horrendous for this sister. However, was the first half worth the ending? I'm torn on that question. I was glad when I got through the slower part I know that for sure.

Thanks to Random House/Ballantine for approving my request and to Net Galley for providing me with a free e-galley in exchange for an honest unbiased review.

This was an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

'A hanging' ought to be the collective noun for witches. It would remind us of what has happened to so many women who were not even witches. This book could have set that right at least a little, but in the end it was a disappointment. The very title is an issue since it's in the form of "The 's Sister/Daughter/Wife." I admit that such titles are provocative, but when you get right down to it, all they really achieve is the reduction of a woman to a mere male appendage of some kind, and it's appallingly insulting when you think about it. I think this is the last novel with such a title that I shall read, no matter how interesting the blurb might make it.

I think there was a story to be told here about a fictional sister of a real historical person, but the telling of it in this way did not work for me. Others might draw different conclusions, and in the interests of full disclosure, let me confess here (you don't even need to torture me!) that I am not a fan of first person voice stories at all. They're decidedly unrealistic and I cannot for the life of me understand why authors, particularly female and particularly in the YA genre, are so addicted to them.

I think it awfully sad that female authors are implying, by so dedicatedly employing this method, that women have so little confidence and feel so unheard in novels that they have to make their stories "all about me" just to get anyone to pay them any attention. As an avid reader, I certainly don't believe that and yet I've encountered very few first person voice novels that were satisfying. First person is far too self-centered, and it typically makes me dislike the narrator because it’s all, "Hey focus on me! See what I'm doing now! It's time for some more about me! Lookit me! It’s all about Meeee!" and I honestly cannot can't stand it, with very few exceptions.

Once in a while an author can carry it, but here it did not work. In terms of realism, it’s highly unlikely that a young girl growing up in a large family of boys, even one as relatively well-off as this one was, would be well-enough educated to be able to write, and especially not a story like this (which is supposed to be her diary or journal, but which reads nothing like one).

Girls did not get much of an education if any, not even in the nobility, and the Hopkins family was hardly nobility. It was deemed that an education would be harmful to a girl's marriage prospects, so it was neglected (beyond the basic housekeeping, sewing, etc.). Because of this, Alice's literacy was hard to swallow. It was inauthentic. On top of this, her voice did not suggest the mid-seventeenth century at all. The mentality was far too modern, and no one has that kind of recollection of events down to detailed conversations, so it just felt wrong from the start, and kept throwing me out of suspension of disbelief.

There's another problem with this voice and the author illustrates this one handsomely for us here. When you trap yourself in first person, your character has to be there and everywhere - otherwise how can she tell us what’s happening? Almost the only alternative to this is the info dump, where she learns what’s going on by having someone tell her in a story-halting binge, or where she reads something which feels so fake, because the only purpose it serves is to clue us in to what she's missed.

The equally clunky alternative to this is to have the character end-up in a position to listen in on something she's not meant to hear. Typically this is far too convenient or contrived, and it feels fake and thoroughly unnatural. In this case, at a meeting of men, we get Alice dragged in there for no good reason, and it felt so obvious and so fake that it really kicked me out of suspension of disbelief. Again. These kinds of men certainly would not want a woman in on their meetings. They had no use for women whatsoever.

Did Matthew Hopkins have a sister? It’s unlikely. His father had six children, but we know the names only of the four eldest. The author argues that at least one of the other two could have been a girl, and uses the lack of mention as evidence: since girls were not counted for anything back then other than as housekeepers and baby mills (an argument which, of course, undermines her entire sister story!). But if the two youngest had died, then they also would have merited no mention even had they been boys. It's unlikely in a family of six that all of them survived infancy in that era. Mortality was appalling.

But fine, if you want to say one was a girl, then let's go with that and ask how she got her name. The name 'Alice' for the main character is chosen for a reason, and it would be a spoiler to reveal it, but it doesn’t work. The Hopkins boys were all named after apostles, the other three (older) brothers being called James, John, and Thomas. Where then would this family come up with a non-Biblical name like Alice? It stands out like a sore thumb, and for me wasn't worth the ending which is too cute by far to be taken seriously.

For a story which promises witchcraft and horror, this one kills the thrills by moving achingly slowly, with rambling reminiscences and flashbacks. These are not to my taste at all. For me, all a flashback does is bring the story to a screeching halt, and I never appreciate that, especially not when it's a reminder that a writer seems to be trying to hit plot points and a story outline, rather than relate a realistic and organic tale of a person's experiences (fictional as they are) as they happened.

Flashbacks have such an amateur feel to them that they ruin suspension of disbelief. No one in real life sits lost in pages flashback or reminiscence (unless they're mentally ill) - not for as long as characters all-too-often do in such stories. It's an amateur conceit really ruined the pace for me. I took to skipping all the flashbacks because they contributed nothing to the story and actually impeded it as far as I could see.

It was a third of the way through the story before we ever got to what Hopkins was doing! Up until that point it was all about Alice, and she was not an appealing character at all. She was tedious, and in very short order, I had lost all interest in her and in what she was thinking or doing. For some reason she became obsessed with a list of witch's names and we had to go through that list over and over again. I took to skipping those passages, too, because they were simply annoying and led nowhere. I had read some reviews that said the story picked up around the halfway point, but I didn't find this to be the case. For me, it continued to be lackluster the entire length of the novel.

Of course not a one of these women was a witch, neither in the pagan sense nor in the absurd evil caster-of-spells sense. They were simply tragic victims of Hopkins's religious fanaticism, and the worst thing about this novel is that we got nothing of that from this story. Just as with his sister, Matthew was completely bland and unmemorable. He's presented as a simple, flat character who offers nothing original or entertaining. He has no emotional depth.

He ought to be a firebrand and a dynamo, but he's a limp rag, and it made for a boring story. He was larded with far too dramatic a past and it completely overshadowed his present whilst contributing nothing materially to it, so instead of an emotional story about the horrible slaying of scores of innocent women, we got a bland family melodrama, and I found it insulting to the memory of those women who were slaughtered on the altar of religious psychosis.

Matthew Hopkins was a real person about whom we know very little, and would probably know next-to-nothing were it not for the eighteen months or so when he became Britain's most prolific serial killer, hiding his vindictive blood-lust beneath the guise of a Christian witch-finder as he acted on the clear Biblical injunction, which fortunately everyone outside of Africa ignores today - of not suffering a witch to live.

He terrorized East Anglia - that butt rump of a bulge on Britain's south eastern shore - running from village to village, and being paid by the local parishes to cleanse their territory of witches. The Bible has a lot to answer for, doesn’t it? It’s the most execrable terrorist manifesto ever written, and we could have had all of this in this novel: the empty message of a god's unconditional love contrasted with the brutal Biblical injunctions to kill, slaughter and eradicate, but we got none of that. For me that was the saddest aspect of all.

On top if this there were portions of the story which seemed to start up dramatically, like an avocado pit on a plant pot, only to die inexplicably without going anywhere. There was a suggestion of the supernatural quite early in the book which never went anywhere, as though the author forgot about it, or had second thoughts. Alice's pregnancy (a left-over from her deceased husband) was an obsession for much of the start of the book and then it fizzled out. At one point I was starting to suspect that Matthew had had Alice's husband killed. I admit that if this suspicion turned out to be true, then I missed the revelation because I was, I confess, skimming the last forty percent of the novel just to get it over with.

As I said, so little is known of Hopkins's life that you can make up pretty much any story you want about him and get away with it. The saddest thing about this novel was not a hanging of witches, which ought to have been front and center, but of a tragically wasted opportunity - one squandered on unimportant trivia in the life of a fictional women when there were so many very real women, all of them murdered by Hopkins, who are begging to have their story told, and yet were denied that opportunity by this author. I cannot recommend this at novel all.

I received this book for free through NetGalley.

I am a huge fan of historical witchy fiction, and this book was mostly superb. Told by Alice, whose brother Matthew hunts, persecutes, and helps to hang women accused of witchcraft, the story is disturbing and compelling, despite the oft times archaic language. My only criticism is the lack of emotion I felt from Alice. Throughout her tale, she suffers many tragedies and losses, but I just didn't really feel much. While she lived with Matthew and he forced her to accompany him on his "travels", she thought about leaving but never really tried. I do realize how women were not independent like we are today, that Alice was at the mercy of her brother's generosity, but I still believe, had I been put in those disgusting situations, I'd have tried my hardest to run away from all of that. Of course, that's my story, and not Alice's. The very best of the book, is the final sentence. I am hopeful for a sequel. A really great read.

The premise sounded promising...17th century England, sister Alice returns home to live with brother Matthew when her husband dies in London, and finds her brother to be a nutcase when it comes to the occult. However, I found this book to be a bit of a drag. It took until half way through to really get into some plot development, as the author dragged the story along, plodding through the background on the family dynamics, the mystery of the brother's facial burns and their old servant, the complexities of their mother's mental and physical illnesses, the sister's hard life and marriage in London, etc. etc. etc. And quite frankly, I was less than interested in these details as little tension was developed, nor any characters I could sincerely love or hate. The second half was better, as the brother and sister take the 'show on the road' and ride about the small English villages testing young women for their skills at witchcraft. Some emotional angst is brought in as the sister struggles with her own morality as she becomes complicit in the trials and deaths of these women. The author plays with the idea of evil entities taking actual physical form, but does not firmly commit which is disconcerting to the reader. Is it fantasy? Is the evil read? Or is the evil within humanity? I would have liked more answers. Ultimately, I turned pages quickly in the end just to finish it, not because I was enamored.

The Witchfinder's Sister is the debut novel by Beth Underdown. Her first novel. I need to make sure that is stated up front because it is an absolutely amazing read. I was totally drawn into Alice's story. The book opens with Alice being kept prisoner in a locked room under orders of her brother Matthew Hopkin's, the infamous witchfinder of English history. As the book circles back and tells the story of Alice and her family, I could not help but fear for her safety. Each chapter increased the dread for what would happen to her.

The book takes place during the English Civil War. The story begins in the spring of 1645 and ends in the summer of 1648. Alice is witness to her brother's hunt for witches and his methods for identifying them. This is the mindset, the philosophy, that gave birth to America's own witch hunts. It is truly frightening on several levels. Any woman who was different, perhaps mentally ill or independent or quarrelsome with her neighbors was fair game for being accused. Once accused there was no way to prove one's innocence, only one's guilt. The author does a fantastic job of illustrating these details without losing the reader's interest.

Although this period of English history is not very familiar to me, I am now very interested in learning more of it. Did this witch paranoia come from the chaos of the civil war or from the religious philosophy of those fighting the crown? How could a woman defend herself if accused? Was there any chance for being acquitted at all? Alice is a fantastic guide through this nightmare world. She is a reliable narrator who is horrified by what she witnesses but finds herself powerless to help any of the accused, even to help herself.

I highly recommend Beth Underdown's debut novel The Witchfinder's Sister. It is a compelling, tense but ultimately enjoyable read.